


Before I Melt Away

by the_chaotic_panda



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Christmas joy, I promise, M/M, Snowman AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:16:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_chaotic_panda/pseuds/the_chaotic_panda
Summary: In which Pete and his kids build a snowman who is not quite ordinary.[Title from the musical masterpiece 'Frosty the Snowman']





	Before I Melt Away

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, look who finally posted! 
> 
> I'd like to thank @sn1tchesandtalkers for a) setting up this collection, b) letting my lazy arse drag itself in two days late, and c) for listening to me whine about this for the past week. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy my little Christmas tale, please leave a comment if you do (or if you don't, all feedback is appreciated), and have a very happy holiday and a wonderful new year. Happy reading!

 

"Hey! Don't bite," Pete snaps at his daughter as she tries to claw today's favourite toy out of her brother's hand. Pete only just manages to pull her off him before he aims a kick at her that would've landed them all in a screaming fit, and Pete really doesn't need that on a Thursday night.

"Don't kick, either, Josh," he almost shouts, catching his son's foot in the air and holding it well away from himself and his wriggling daughter. "How many times have I told you? You have to learn to share."

Both of them seem equally apathetic to this idea, and Josh unhelpfully waves the toy – a small, green truck – at Carrie with his tongue stuck out.

She's not having any of that though, and lets out a scream of anger and squirms hard enough to make Pete decide to remove her fully from the situation and carry her over to the couch, sitting down and holding her still until she stops yelling her tonsils out. Pete's a step away from yelling himself.

"You shouldn't bite, okay?" he says as calmly as he can, when she's stopped screaming in favour of bawling nonsense into his shirt. He glances towards a sheepish-looking Josh, who clutches the truck to his chest and shuffles away from the mess of animals and cars and Lego littering the living room floor. "And  _you_ shouldn't kick. You could've really hurt her, Josh."

Josh just opens his mouth wide and Pete braces himself for the shouting. "But – but she took it, I was playing with it and hers is the yellow one, the green one is mine!"

"No, no  _yours_ is ye'ow!  _Yours is ye'ow!"_ Carrie shrieks back, her eyes absolutely distraught and her legs flailing in Pete's lap.

"Alright, okay," Pete sighs, knowing that all this calls for another Talk. "Josh, come sit here." He pats the couch beside him. "You've made your sister cry, yeah?"

"It was her fault, she doesn't know how to play properly, she doesn't put the cars on the roads and I wanted them to –"

"That doesn't mean you can fight with her. You're older than her, you've got to know better. Why don't you teach her how to use the roads? And share the green truck?" Pete suggests, hoping against hope that Josh takes the higher ground on this one.

He pouts, oh, he pouts tremendously, crossing his arms and scowling something chronic. "But she always ruins everything. She doesn't know the game."

"Well then you teach her the game. And you  _certainly_ don't kick."

"She bit me!" he retorts, which is a fair point. At least he raised a kid with reasonable debating skills. Although it was probably mostly Patrick who taught him that.

"Yes, and I'm going to tell her off for that too, but you have to learn to share with each other. The game's gotta be more fun with two people, right?"

Josh doesn't look convinced, and rightly so, it was a poor defence on Pete's part, but still, he doesn't shout anymore and Pete can turn his attention to the slightly calmer three-year-old in his lap. "You don't bite, do you understand me?" he says as forcefully as he can, sitting her in front of him and trying to catch her gaze. "Do you understand?"

Carrie's face is screwed up in a brewing scream, but she seems to give in, reaching for Pete and garbling a "Sorry daddy".

"That's okay, but say sorry to your brother too. He doesn't like it when you bite, and neither does daddy," Pete says, probably in way too many words for her to follow, but she seems to have picked up the main point because she says something that sounds like  _sour jars,_ which is close enough for Pete.

He decides he needs to wrap this up, not least because the spaghetti is probably boiled to oblivion by now, and places a disdainful Carrie on the couch.

"Now, you play  _nice,_ alright? Dinner in five minutes, okay?"

They both look at him like he's just told them Christmas is cancelled, but Josh reluctantly returns to the floor and picks up the green truck, offering it to Carrie. Pete feels a swell of pride for his son, and gives himself a few parenting points when Carrie climbs off the couch and plonks herself back down beside him, picking up the truck and running it across the floor around her. Josh gives him a grin, and Pete smiles broadly, nodding his head.  _They'll turn out just fine,_ he tells himself as he jogs to the kitchen to prevent a spaghetti-related accident.

But spaghetti-related incident seems to define the whole meal when ten minutes later, Pete's wiping sauce off his daughter's face and her hands and the table and the floor whilst Josh cackles in the background and offers no help at all. Carrie looks like she's in seventh heaven as she kneads the strands in her hands, knife and fork abandoned beside her and Pete tries so hard not to shout. How Patrick managed it, he'll never know, because the tomato is spreading to her clothes faster than he can scrub at it, there goes another t-shirt.

By the time he's had a few mouthfuls of dinner himself, they both want to get down from the table, and Pete doesn't know what to do other than let them. With a sigh and a yell at them to wash their hands, he watches them scamper off to God knows where, leaving him to eat his slightly cold spaghetti all by himself. It's a little overcooked, he decides, and the broccoli needs some seasoning.

He runs a hand through his hair when he hears the kids screaming at each other yet again – he needs another pair of hands, and a few more eyes, and an extra mouth so he can shout and eat at the same time. With a sigh, he scrapes his plate off, tells himself he'll wash up later - it's not like he wanted a lazy evening tonight anyway - and jogs back to the lounge to drag his children away from each other once again.

-

Friday dawns a blinding white that streams through the curtains and slaps Pete square in the face, his alarm clock joining in for its daily assault on Pete's ears. He forgets himself for a few moments, slamming the noise quiet and rolling over to curl around a body that isn't there, burying his nose in a scent that has long faded. Then he hears yelling again, and the illusion vanishes underneath his hands like it always does.

"Daddydaddydaddy!" Carrie's voice gets louder as she patters across the landing and inevitably towards Pete's room. He shuts his eyes fast, bringing the covers over his head and hoping to God that this might be the morning she takes pity on him.

He has no such luck. Cold air soaks his face as the covers are yanked away and a stubby finger pokes him in the cheek, God knows where it's been.

"What is it, sweetie," he sighs as he opens his eyes to see Carrie's big brown ones fixed on him and her mouth curved into a rather worrying show of excitement.

"It's snowing!" she grins, her hands curling tighter around her Special Blanket, the well-chewed corner poking through her fist.

"Oh," Pete says, muffling a groan in the pillow. He is not in the mood for shovelling this morning. "Good."

"Can I go outside?"

Pete nearly laughs. "Not now, sweetie, you need to get ready for nursery. Clothes, hair, breakfast, yeah?"

"But  _Josh_ is going," she whines, her face falling.

"What," Pete says flatly, already dreading leaving his bed. "He's –"

"He's downstairs," she tells him gleefully, knowing Josh will be in big trouble for this. "He's putting boots on."

"Oh good. Okay," Pete sighs, pushing himself up on to his elbows and blinking furiously. "Tell him to wait for me, I'm coming."

"So we can go outside?" she says quickly, already beginning to toddle away, "Thanks daddy!"

"No!" he calls after her, trying to scramble out of the bedsheets as quickly as possible, "Wait! You both  _wait for daddy,_ okay?!"

Miraculously, they do wait, and are both sitting by the front door in haphazardly thrown-on jackets and scarves; Carrie's got her hat on inside-out and Josh's gloves are on the wrong way round, but neither is as dishevelled as their dad, who barrels down the stairs with his shirt buttoned up wrong and his belt missing several loops.

"I hope you've got your uniform underneath that," he pants at Josh, who nods and proudly shows his red jumper sleeve peeking out from his coat.

"Yes, daddy. Now can we go out?" he pleads, gesturing to his wellies. "I've packed my lunch!"

"Right," Pete says sceptically, picturing a several packets of crisps and some animal biscuits stuffed into a box, "well...fine."

They both cheer and scramble to their feet, Josh shooting out the front door and leaving Carrie trying to pull her boot onto the wrong foot.

Pete helps her right her skewed clothes and zips up her jacket for her, then shoves his own boots and jacket on as she trundles out of the door. God knows how he'll get them to their respective educational institutions on time.

Seven hours later, they're all back out in the garden again, having had rather miserable days at work and school and nursery spent staring out of the window at the steady stream of large pieces of fluff falling from the sky. The roads have become a slushy grey mess, but there's at least a foot of it now in the places where it remains untouched.

By the time Pete's got them all home, their front yard bears no evidence of all the path-clearing Pete did this morning, nor the colossal assault of snowballs Josh decided to unleash upon Carrie, and the kids squeal at the sight of a fresh canvas. They've barely got in the door before Josh declares that he's going to build a snowman.

"Can I help?" Carrie asks, to which Josh gives a poisonous glare.

"No! You're too little!"

" _Josh,_ " Pete warns, "she can help."

"But she'll ruin it!" he whines, "I want it to be the best snowman ever!"

"You can  _both_ make the best snowman ever," Pete suggests, picking his gloves off his fingers and salivating at the thought of a nice hot cup of coffee.

"She can make her _own_ snowman," Josh huffs, crossing his puffy jacket-clad arms.

"I don't  _want_ to!" Carrie shouts suddenly, her small but powerful foot catching Josh in the shin.

"Carrie!" Pete scorns as Josh pulls his sister's hat from her head amidst her yells.

"You  _can't_ help with my snowman!"

"But I want to make it! I want to make the snowman!" she bellows, on the verge of a screaming fit that Pete is very keen to nip in the bud.

"Okay!" he shouts over the top of them both. They go gratifyingly quiet. "Listen, we'll  _all_ make the snowman, yeah?"

"Daddy too?" Carrie sniffs, her mouth twisted into a stormy frown.

Josh's face brightens minutely, and Pete sees his coffee dreams floating away from him. "Alright. Daddy too. Now give Carrie her hat back. And you  _don't_ kick, do you understand? Or no-one is going to make any snowmen."

They both pull guilty-looking faces at him for a few seconds, then wrestle each other for the door handle. Josh ends up using Carrie's hat as a distraction, throwing it in her face as they both tumble out of the door and into the snow.

"Come on daddy!" Josh calls, just as Pete's thinking he might get away with a sneaky coffee. With a sigh, he shoves his gloves back on and trudges after them, pulling his hood over his head and trying to emulate his children's excitement.

It really  _is_ the best snowman ever.

It's got three tiers; Pete did the bottom one, Josh the middle, and Carrie took the utmost pride in making the head. They even sculpted little arms for it, human arms, rather than the sorry-looking twigs most other people's snowmen were stuck with. Carrie stuck two stones in his head for eyes, and Pete dug out a carrot for his nose, and then they all pressed a row of gravel in to make the mouth.

Once Pete had carefully placed the head on top of the body and smoothed out the join, they'd stood back to admire their handiwork – but Josh wasn't satisfied.

"He needs a scarf! And a hat," he says, instantly scampering back inside the house and probably trailing snow all through the hall.

He comes back with one of Pete's uglier scarves in one hand and a fedora in the other. Pete's chest squeezes up.

"No, no, Josh, you can't use that one," Pete says quickly, stopping the boy in his tracks. "Find a different one."

"But there's lots like this in the cupboard!" he reasons, clutching it to his chest with gloved hands.

"No. Not one of those ones."

"I like it! It's the best hat," Carrie interjects unhelpfully as Pete reaches for the hat, only to have Josh run away from him.

"But our snowman will be smart!" Josh protests, and Carrie agrees. "Why can't we use it?"

"You know why you can't," Pete warns, trying to convey to Josh that he is absolutely not joking. He sees the moment Josh catches on and a lump forms in his throat. Christmas is always the worst time.

Josh stops running and chews on his lips, still hugging the hat. "Papa wouldn't mind," he says softly, looking up at Pete with wide eyes. "You said he liked snow."

Pete's head fills with memories of snowflakes caught in blond hair and chapped lips pressed to flushed cheeks. He pushes them away.

Carrie looks between them with confusion, sitting herself down in the snow and huffing impatiently. Josh stares for a few moments as the atmosphere becomes as thick as the snow, and Pete has to breathe sharp, cold gulps of air to stop himself ruining his children's day.

"I'll put it back," Josh says quietly, wriggling his little feet out of the snow they're sunk into.

"No, don't," Pete finally sighs, stumbling over to his son and placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're right, you can – you can use the hat. He wouldn't mind."

Pete has to admit, the snowman does look smart with his nicely wrapped scarf and the neat, black fedora perched on his head, even if it does make Pete's stomach clench to see the photos they all take, the ever-smiling snowman filling a space that's been empty for nearly three years.

Pete finally gets his coffee that evening as they sit watching Frozen, huddled on one sofa and wrapped in Josh's Star Wars blanket. The kids insist upon checking the snowman at intervals, and Pete begins to think it was a mistake to let them watch The Snowman the other weekend. But even Pete, before he goes to bed, peeks through his bedroom window to see the glittering outline of the snowman in the moonlight, the garden cloaked in a fresh layer of sparkling snowflakes. It's quite magical. God knows Pete could use a little bit of magic.

-

"Daddy!" is the first thing Pete hears the next morning, and it is not a welcome sound. It's  _Saturday,_ for goodness' sake.

It's both of them this time, Pete sees as he peels his eyes open. Josh's hand tugs on his arm insistently, and Pete shrugs it off when he glances at his alarm clock to see 6:37 plastered over it.

"You  _know_  daddy likes to lie in a bit longer on weekends," Pete groans, his voice groggy with sleep. "You can go watch TV if you want, just give me another hour or so." He hopes, if he suggests an hour, they might give him half.

"No, daddy, you have to come and see!" Josh protests, patting Pete's hand and pulling at his fingers.

"See what?" Pete slurs, swatting his son's hand away. "I've already seen the snow."

"No, no, daddy," Josh says, looking increasingly worked up, "it's papa!"

Pete stares at him. "What?"

"It's papa, he's come back, daddy!" Josh grins, practically vibrating on the spot.

The anger that rushes to Pete's chest has him pushing himself up to look his son in the face. "No. Josh, you don't joke about that, you  _know_ you don't –"

"I'm not joking, Carrie saw him too!" They both look at her, and she nods vigorously.

Pete shakes his head. "Joshua, don't you dare say things like that. Don't you dare, you hear me?!"

"But – "

"No!" Pete makes himself jump with the volume of his yell. "You don't talk about papa like that! He's not here, okay?!"

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, scrubbing at them until he's sure any signs of tears have been eradicated, then turns back to his kids. They're whispering to each other – that's never a good sign. Then, they both scamper to the window, pulling the curtains open a little and peering out. The grey light hurts Pete's eyes.

"Look! He's still there!" Carrie says, hammering her finger against the window pane.

Pete decides that he'll at least look before beginning to shout at them; he knows they can't  _mean_ it, really, but it feels so malicious, so calculated to hurt Pete in this way. He feels like he's being conspired against.

He staggers over to the window and looks where Carrie's pointing.

"Holy sh – hell, there's a guy in the yard?!" he exclaims when he sees the body lying in the snow, their snowman in ruins around him. "What's he doing?!"

"See? Papa," Carrie nods, and Pete tuts at her. For all the hatred she directs at Josh, she doesn't half pick up a lot of his bullshit.

"That's not papa, that's some damn idiot," Pete grumbles, fishing around on his floor for some socks and pulling on a jumper.

"What are you gonna do?" Josh asks curiously, following Pete as he marches across the landing and down the stairs.

"I'm gonna tell him to get off our snowman," Pete says, then stops when he sees the smattering of snow in the hallway. "Wait, did you already go out?"

Josh gives him a look that says he  _absolutely_ went out, and Pete makes an exasperated noise.

"I told you not to go outside without telling me! We don't know who this man is, he could be dangerous, Josh, he could hurt you!"

"I didn't let Carrie! I just went to see! It's papa!" Josh retorts, crossing his arms moodily and stomping his foot on the floor.

"Will you shut the hell up about papa!" Pete yells, too loud, too aggressive. His voice echoes around the hall and he regrets it instantly, feels a stab of guilt when he sees the shock on his kids' faces. He takes a long breath, and tries to relax his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," he says slowly, "I shouldn't have shouted, that wasn't nice. Now, what's going to happen is, I'm going to go out to the man and you're going to stay inside, okay?"

They both nod, not saying a word, and Pete makes a note to give them hot chocolate later and explain why he got so angry, that's what the books say to do. For now, he shoves on his boots and a jacket, grabs a key, and opens the front door.

The guy is face down in the snow. There's a strong possibility, Pete thinks, that he's dead, or at least suffering from very severe hypothermia. He could have a corpse on his hands, that means police are gonna want statements and evidence and God knows what else. He really hopes the guy isn't dead.

"Hey buddy," Pete calls, staying a good few feet away. He realises he should have brought some kind of weapon, so instead, curls his fingers around the door key, just in case. Although, this guy doesn't appear to pose much of a threat. "You okay?"

No answer. Pete thinks he sees the guy's back twitch – he may not have kicked the bucket just yet. "Buddy, this is my yard," Pete says, "can you get off my property, please."

Now the guy  _does_ stir, the light layer of snow over his body cracking and shifting. He's buck naked, his butt glistening in the morning light. It must've been one hell of a night.

Then Pete sees something that makes him truly angry – the guy isn't quite naked, actually. He's wearing the snowman's scarf and hat.  _Papa's_ hat. Pete stomps through the snow towards the guy, hands in fists and blood boiling.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" he snarls, low enough that neither the neighbours or his kids will hear. "Get off my property."

He kicks a shower of snow towards the guy, watching his body flinch as it rains down on him. The guy  _finally_ starts to move, pulling his legs underneath himself and sitting up in the snow. Then he turns his head slightly, catching Pete's eye for the first time.

Pete stares. Pete's dead husband stares back.

Everything disappears from Pete's mind. He becomes completely empty, a shell locked inside a moment, caged up in that blue-eyed gaze. Patrick's name plays over and over like a stuck record as Pete takes in the face he's only saved in photographs, in two dimensions, that's  _here_ and  _moving_ and  _alive._ Pete's gone insane.

He reels back towards the house, scrubbing at his eyes and looking away from the figure, the ghost in his yard.  _It's not real,_ he tells himself,  _it's just like all the other times, it's not real._ He doesn't bother to rid his boots of snow as he bangs through the door and slams it behind him. He thought he'd got over this; it's been years.

The tears won't come right away, they never used to. The shakes are first, part cold, part trauma, making him rattle like an old motor and stumble over his own feet. He manages to make it to an armchair before he collapses, throwing his gloves off and his hands over his eyes.

"Daddy?"

It's Josh. He's tugging at Pete's sleeve, and Pete wants to tell him to go away, to leave his infirm father alone before he does something stupid, but instead he manages to say calmly, "I just need a minute, okay?"

"I told you it was papa," Carrie says quietly.

"That's not him," Pete says, his voice trembling but his tone firm. "It's just daddy being silly. You're just seeing what you want to see."

"He's not imaginary," Josh pipes up, peering out at the front lawn. Pete doesn't follow his gaze. "He's right there!"

Sure enough, when Pete finally gives in, there's still a cream-coloured man with a hat on sitting in the garden. They must all be tripping on something weird – maybe the pasta sauce was spiked, or something like that. It's the only explanation.

"Can we go see him?" Josh asks hopefully, even though he must know what the answer is going to be.

"You'll go nowhere near him, like I said," Pete states. If he's not gone in an hour, then the guy might be real but his face is not, and Pete decides he'll call the police. His hands still shake with the shock of recognition, and he can't get those eyes out of his head. They were so  _alive._

This isn't like the other times. The other times were early on, in those horrific weeks after he'd got the phone call telling him his husband had been involved in a traffic collision, that he'd been killed instantly. Pete will never get over the pain of having to tell his children that their papa isn't coming home.

The visions sprung mostly from expectation; the certainty that when Pete walked into the kitchen, Patrick would be there, supervising the microwave or filling the kettle or pinching ice cream from the freezer. The inevitability that when he fell into bed at night, there'd be warm lips against his neck and a soft waist to wrap his arms around, the surety that when he woke up in the morning, there'd be another body pressed up against his own.

He'd feel Patrick before he saw him, and what he wished for would shape what his mind presented to him. He'd grab at invisible hips and smile at inaudible laughter. Then, it would all disappear and leave him colder and lonelier every time. He was glad his mum had taken the kids off him for that time; he wouldn't have wanted them seeing their only remaining father slowly losing his sanity and his sobriety. But it was them who got him through it. Letting his children down would be letting Patrick down.

Three years on, and he's doing okay. It still hurts, he doesn't think there's ever gonna be a time when it doesn't hurt, but the kids are growing into decent people and he's bringing in enough to support them all, so he considers it a success. But  _this._ This is something else.

He looks so  _real,_ sat there in the snow. When he moves, it's not with the graceful smoothness of Pete's illusions. He's erratic and clumsy and so very human that it's mesmerising to watch; Pete indulges himself a little by letting his eyes linger on the man's – he refuses to call them his husband's – shoulders, the curve of his spine, the now bright white sunlight bouncing off his skin.

"Isn't he cold out there?" Josh asks, then the all-important follow-up question, "can we let him in?"

"He's not cold," Carrie scoffs like it's obvious, "he's a snowman!"

"No he isn't," Pete tuts, but Carrie isn't having any of it.

"No, no, look! He's got the scarf! And hat! He's a snowman!" she says merrily, with no idea of the torment going on in Pete's mind. He'll wake up soon, he's sure of it.

"Joe?" he says into his phone as they all hover in the kitchen. Pete had tried to stop the kids getting all their gear on, but his mental state is weaker than the Pope's piss and he couldn't say no to them again. He won't let them out, though. They know he's crying, and they keep staring at him with curious eyes. It makes Pete feel like a zoo animal.

"Pete? It's fucking seven o'clock in the morning? This better be good," Joe huffs, but Pete's pretty confident that this is good.

"I'm seeing him again," he says avoiding Josh's gaze, "Patrick. He's in my front yard."

There's a short stretch of silence from the other end of the line, before Joe says simply "Ah."

"Well?!" Pete hisses, his voice cracking up around the edges as a fresh batch of distraught tears fall down his face.

"Well, okay. Uh...listen, dude, we've been over this. Just, deep breaths, yeah?"

"But he's – he's so...real, this time. It's weird," Pete tries to sound like he isn't in pieces just thinking about whatever horrific game his mind is playing on him. "The kids can see him too."

Another short pause. "Okay – that's never happened before, has it?" Joe asks, sounding doubtful.

"No."

"Uh. Right. Look, Pete, I really think you need to sit down, have some coffee and just take your mind off it. Just remember he's not there, yeah, he's gone, and that's okay. He's gone, yeah?"

"I know that!" Pete bursts, averting his eyes from the window and trying to rid his eyes of the cruel illusion. "I know. This is just – different. He's, like, solid."

"Right. Okay. Uh – okay. I'm gonna come over, alright, just sit tight and I'll be there in a second," Joe says, giving Pete a quick goodbye before he hangs up. This is the exact moment that Josh decides to barrel past him and down the hall, towards the strange and imaginary man.

"No! Josh, come back here!" Pete shouts, springing from his chair and towards the open front door, Carrie struggling to keep up. "Don't go near him!"

It hurts to even look at the man, to be taunted by something that looks  _so_ real, so tangible. Patrick hasn't spoken, yet, which is a bonus; Pete thinks he might die if he hears that voice again. Just Patrick's eyes upon him is enough to cause him to sob into the sleeve of his jacket.

Josh hovers three feet from the man, torn between him and his father. Carrie has no such qualms.

She wades over to him as fast as her little legs will carry her, sending globs of snow everywhere before falling onto the man's shoulder and grabbing hold of it.

"No, Carrie!" Pete cries, "Let go of him! He's not safe!"

"Papa!" she grins into the man's shoulder, hugging onto his arm. Patrick looks utterly bewildered, staring at the strange small human attached to him and blinking furiously. "He  _is_ real!"

It takes Pete marching over and prying Carrie off Patrick's arm before she lets go, annoyed and squirming. Patrick pushes himself away from Pete, scrambling through the snow and cowering in a way that just makes Pete's stomach churn more vigorously. He places Carrie to one side and turns back to this imposter, this mockery, telling him "I don't know what you're playing at, but get out.  _Get out._ You're not real."

The man just stares at Pete with wide eyes, limbs sunk deep in the snow and hat still perched on his head. His mouth flaps but no sound comes out.

At that moment, Joe's car pulls into view, carefully stopping outside Pete's house and avoiding his ski-slope of a driveway. When Joe gets out, he hardly acknowledges Pete, his eyes trained on the man half-buried in the lawn.

"Holy shit," Joe says, amidst Pete's hisses at him to shut up and his children's sniggers. "I thought you were off your nut."

"You see him?" Pete asks, just to be totally sure.

"Oh yeah, that's Patrick alright," he snorts, trudging nearer to poke his boot into Patrick's knee. "This is  _weird,_ man."

"Well,  _yeah,"_ Pete scowls, sinking his teeth into his lip before he blubs in front of Joe. "What the hell do we do?"

"Uh..." Joe ponders, then bends down to look Patrick in the face. "Can...you...hear...me?" he says unnecessarily loudly. Patrick just blinks. "I don't think he can, man."

Pete feels Josh squeeze himself between him and Joe, and takes hold of his son's coat before he can jump on Patrick, or whatever he's planning on doing. Instead, Josh puts a hand on his own chest and says "Josh."

Patrick's head tilts, his eyes snapping to Josh and mimicking the hand on his chest. "Josh," Patrick repeats, and the boy giggles.

"No, silly, you're not Josh,  _I'm_ Josh!" he laughs, burying his face in Pete's jacket. He's definitely onto something, though, and Pete crouches down into snow, taking a moment to wipe his eyes before he looks up into Patrick's.

He taps his own chest. "Pete," he says.

"Pete," Patrick says in his syrupy voice, melting a hole right through to Pete's heart. He shakes his head. He can't do this.

Pushing himself back up, Pete stares at the ground. "Let's go inside," he tells Joe, "if we leave him here, he might go away."

"But dude, it's freezing, he might, like, die or something," Joe reasons, pulling his knitted hat off and ruffling his hair.

"He already died, Joe," Pete snarls, "he died three years ago."

"Well,  _yeah,_ but, like...are you sure? Some people fake their own deaths. Maybe this  _is_  actually him, dude, he's just – had his memory wiped by the Soviets or something," Joe shrugs. Pete fights hard against the desire to punch him in the face.

"He's dead, Joe!" Pete shouts, losing all regard for the neighbours, "I saw his body! He was still and – and cold – and – and..."

He finds himself brought into Joe's arms as he breaks down into sobs, the tears painfully cold on his face and his nose freezing with snot, his throat rubbed raw by the frostbitten air. He hasn't had a breakdown like this since what would've been Patrick's 30th birthday. Unsurprisingly, Carrie starts crying too, clinging to Pete's leg and wailing loudly.

"Sorry daddy," he hears Josh say, and looks down at his son. "It's my fault."

Pete's chest tightens at the look of guilt on his son's face, and he shakes his head. "It's not your fault, Josh."

"It is," the boy insists, "I wished that our snowman could come to life."

"No, no, that's not what's happened," Pete assures him, even though he's in no state to be making any assurances. "Now, let's go inside, 'kay?" he sniffs, squeezing Josh's shoulder.

"But what about snowman?" Carrie cries, grabbing at Pete's jacket.

They all look at Pete expectantly, even Joe. Pete glances at Patrick, still slumped in the snow.

"Leave him," Pete says, catching Carrie's hand and dragging her away. He makes for the front door and doesn't look back.

 

Half an hour later and Pete's scowling at Joe as he pulls a stumbling snowman over the threshold, a jacket thrown over his shoulders and a picnic rug wrapped around his waist. He's still got the fucking fedora on his head, and Pete hates him for it, hates that this doesn't fit into any of the reasonable scenarios Pete's thought up, hates that he's actually thinking that his five-year-old might be right about this.

The kids hover around Patrick, fascinated. Carrie's got his hand clasped in hers, and once he's sat on the couch, Josh brings him one of his teddies. It's a little brown bear, one of Josh's old ones. It's lost its bow and one of the arms has a hole in the seam, but the look on Patrick's face as it's placed into his hands is one of utter amazement.

He still has those long, elegant fingers, and with them, he clasps the bear gently, running his thumb over its furry stomach. His eyes are fixed upon it, mesmerised, while Josh grins like the Cheshire Cat and points proudly, saying "Bear."

"Bear," Patrick repeats, bringing the toy to his chest and cradling it.

"Patrick," Joe says from his place next to the man, tapping Patrick in the centre of his chest. Patrick looks utterly confused, touching the spot where Joe's fingers were and gazing at it.

"Pa...trick?" he asks, his hand still on his chest, bear safe in his lap.

"Yup, Patrick," Joe smiles, and Patrick mimics it, his face spreading into the beautiful grin Pete knew so well. It occurs to him then how much he wants this man; real or not, he's still as handsome as Pete remembers him. Pete wants to touch him, to hold him, to cup Patrick's face in his hands and press their lips together like he should have done three years ago before Patrick went out for milk. He wants to smile like his children are, to celebrate whatever this is – but whatever this is, it's going to go away as soon as it arrived and take Pete's sanity with it.

He leaves the room when someone makes Patrick laugh.

 

"You okay?" Joe asks doubtfully as he creeps into Pete's bedroom to see him curled in the unmade sheets, his face tracked with tears.

"What the fuck does it look like," Pete spits, glaring. "My dead husband is a fucking snowman."

At that, Joe snorts with laughter, sitting down on the bed and giving Pete a pat on the head. Pete swats his hand away.

"You've gotta admit it's a possibility," Joe shrugs, like he isn't a sane, rational human being anymore. "He was out there for hours, and he's not showing any signs of freezing to death. He's cold as ice, dude, but he's like,  _fine,_ I dunno. Someone might have decided he went too soon."

"Oh fuck off," Pete snaps, rolling his eyes. "I don't believe in shit like that."

"Well, unless he has an absolutely identical twin brother that no-one knew about, I don't see how you can reach any other conclusion," Joe huffs, like  _Pete's_ the one being unreasonable.

"So, you're saying," Pete gulps, "that the snowman that me and my kids built yesterday  _out of snow_ has come to life in the form of my deceased husband."

"Um," Joe fumbles, "well...I mean, maybe? It's not impossible."

"It  _is_ fucking impossible!" Pete cries, slamming his hand down on the bed and beginning to think Joe wasn't the person to call. Perhaps a psychiatrist would have been more helpful.

Joe sighs, giving Pete's knee a rub like that might improve the situation. "Okay. I just – he's  _right here._ I'm surprised you're not all over him by now."

"He's not him, though, is he," Pete says, his voice cracking horribly. "He's like – a kid, or something, he's – he's empty."

"He thinks you don't like him," Joe says matter-of-factly, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips.

"Where the hell have you got that from?! He knows like three words!" Pete spits, clenching his fingers into fists to stop himself wrapping them around Joe's throat.

"I'm just  _saying,_ if you really don't think it's real, then, like, what's the harm?"

"What's the harm?!" Pete shrieks, feeling a curl of satisfaction when Joe jumps. "My fucking sanity! That's the harm! I'd finally fucking – accepted it, I'd finally got to a place where things were okay, and now some fucking magical shit decides to taunt me with a fucking snowman? What the fuck is going on?!"

Joe nods resignedly, sighing that he takes Pete's point. He drifts off downstairs after a while, no doubt to buddy up to the fucking iceman in Pete's lounge, while Pete tries to think over everything at once. He stopped believing in any kind of miracles when the kindest man he ever knew was thrown through a windshield.

Patrick smiles at him from the frame on Pete's bedside table, his eyes squinting in the sun and his hair shining gold. "This is some fucked up shit, Patrick," Pete says to him. "There better be a damn good reason for this."

With that, he pushes himself off the bed, stopping when he remembers the picnic rug snowman-Patrick is wrapped in.

"You don't mind, do you?" he asks no-one as he reaches into the wardrobe and fishes out one of his husband's old jumpers and some sweats. His parents persuaded him to clear out the majority of Patrick's clothes, but he'd kept some back specifically for the arrival of magic snowmen. He presses the fabric to his face and breathes in Patrick's smell, ignoring the tears that spring to his eyes and trying to imagine what Patrick would do in this situation. He'd have had the snowman fed, watered and pine-scented by now.

 

It's still a shock to see him. He looks up when Pete walks in, a zoo-full of soft toys nestled around him and a pile of Lego at his feet.

"Daddy!" Josh exclaims, getting to his feet and running over to Pete. "He knows lots of things now, we taught him all the animals!" Pete finds himself being dragged towards the couch, and sees Joe shuffle to the side to make a space that is very obviously for Pete next to the snowman.

Pete clutches the clothes tight to his chest as he perches on the edge of the sofa, non-committal and hesitant. "Uh, hey," he says awkwardly. He thinks about handing over the clothes, but on seeing the blank look in Patrick's eyes, decides against it, a surge of protectiveness shooting down his spine. This isn't  _his_ Patrick. It's a snowman.

"Patrick," the snowman says, patting his chest carefully so as not to disturb the many animals surrounding him.

"Yeah, whatever," Pete says, curling his fingers into the fabric of his husband's jumper.

"Bat," the snowman says suddenly, and Pete feels softness against his arm; the snowman holds a fluffy toy bat in his hands, offering it to Pete. It's hard to look him in the eyes, it makes Pete's chest twist and his heart ache but he does it anyway, seeing the hope and happiness on the snowman's face when Pete finally accepts the bat.

"Say thank you," Josh prompts, and Pete breathes a laugh at the role-reversal. He holds the bat in his hands and mutters the words under his breath, avoiding the touch of the snowman's fingers.

He doesn't give him the clothes. In fact, he curses himself for even thinking to do so. Instead, he and Joe fish out some of Pete's bigger stuff, shoo the kids away and help the snowman into it, Joe narrating the process to the snowman to help him learn. Pete just yanks his arms through the sleeves and shouts when he won't keep his foot still long enough for Pete to get a sock on it.

Seeing his body is almost as bad as seeing his face; Pete can't handle the longing, the want to press kisses all over that creamy chest and close his mouth over that pink cock. He's not supposed to say it, it's not socially acceptable to say it, but he misses Patrick's dick as much as any other part of him. He's tried dating, but never found anyone who was as vibrant as Patrick, who could make him scream like Patrick did. Everyone told him his expectations were too high, that he wouldn't find exactly what he had before, so Pete stopped trying. If he couldn't have the past, he didn't want anything at all.

The whole snowman thing becomes a lot more plausible when Pete discovers just how cold his skin is – it's not quite freezer-cold, more white wine cold. It sends goosebumps over Pete's arms if he lingers too long. Once he's decent, the snowman returns to his nest of toys, and the kids instantly begin to show him more of their various plastic vehicles. He sits with a bemused smile on his face as Pete watches from across the room, wondering how the hell it's only been three hours since all this began.

The snowman likes Coco Pops. Josh eats his at lightning speed so he can scooch his chair round to sit next to him, babbling at him to leave as much of the milk as possible so it can be drunk at the end. The snowman simply smiles and slurps at his spoon, learning quickly that he has to tip it at just the right time to avoid spilling it all down himself. Carrie doesn't stop giggling, struggling for breath when the snowman fucks up spectacularly by managing to catapult the spoon across the room. Pete almost laughs too.

He spends the day hovering around the three of them, Joe at his side, not wanting to get too close in case he breaks down again, in case he starts yelling again. By the evening, they've established that the snowman doesn't understand sandwiches (he picks out the cheese and licks the butter off the bread, despite their efforts to show him proper sandwich-eating technique), the snowman loves his bear and won't be parted from it, and the snowman hates any food above 20 degrees, as they found out when he let out one of the loudest shrieks Pete's ever heard upon tasting the tomato soup Pete put in front of him.

"Can snowman stay?" Carrie asks when Pete's putting her to bed that evening. "I like him."

"Uh..." Pete falters, thinking back to Joe's suggestion that he could take the snowman back to his house to save Pete some trauma. Carrie looks so hopeful, though. "Maybe."

Josh asks the same thing, his bedroom looking strangely bare now that the toys have been rehomed to the snowman's lap. Pete gives him the same answer.

 

"Do you want me to take him," Joe sighs over a well-earned scotch later that night. "I can, if you like. If you don't wanna be around him."

Pete looks at the snowman, who seems to have picked up on the fact that they're talking about him, and flicks his eyes between the two of them warily. He looks so small, curled on the couch, his hair a mess and his hands still clutching the bear. This isn't the Patrick Pete knew, but he's not entirely sure it's not the Patrick he loved. He still feels the flutter in his stomach whenever the snowman's eyes rest on him, even if it's drowned out by the abhorrence.

Purely out of curiosity, Pete reaches out to the snowman, touching his fingers to his hand. It's cold, strangely cold, but it reacts instantly, taking hold of Pete's fingers and squeezing ever so slightly. His eyes are blank, though.

"He doesn't know me at all," Pete says softly, feeling a lump beginning to form in his throat as he registers the pain of that fact. He stares down at the hand clasped between his own. The last time he held it, it was to remove Patrick's wedding ring.

Pete rubs his thumb slowly over the snowman's wrist. He doesn't feel a pulse. Sliding a hand to the snowman's neck, he presses two fingers to the vein, feeling nothing but the push of muscle. He begins to lose himself then, cupping the snowman's jaw and seeing nothing but his husband, stroking his knuckles over the snowman's cheek and feeling nothing but adoration for the face so close to his own, the delicate blond eyebrows, the petal-pink lips that flutter like blossoms in the wind.

He gets so close to kissing Patrick, but catches himself at the last moment and settles for dropping his face to Patrick's shoulder, wrapping his arms around Patrick's chest and holding him tight. When Patrick hugs back, Pete's world brightens infinitely. When Patrick's fingers trail down his spine, Pete feels so much like he belongs that it doesn't matter when he pulls back to see nothing but an empty snowman in front of him. Somehow, for now, it's enough.

"No," Pete says, his hand finding its way back to the snowman's, "I'll keep him."

The snowman presses a finger to the centre of Pete's chest. "Pete," he says.

-

Pete doesn't expect him still to be here the next day. But instead of two sets of feet padding across the landing, there's three, and Pete gets the shock of his life when he sees a grown man looming over him in the darkness, teddies bunched under his arms and a big smile on his face.

"Can we go play?" Josh asks, his hand curled in the snowman's borrowed pyjama t-shirt. The snowman nods encouragingly; apparently, he's learnt  _yes_  and  _no_  overnight.

Pete groans a  _yes_ as he remembers yesterday's happenings, watching the three of them wander back out of the room. He cries into the pillow for a few minutes before rolling over and falling back to sleep.

There are rather a few mornings like this over the next few days. Each day, Pete thinks this'll be it, that the snowman will have disappeared and everything will be back to normal, with Pete's dead husband staying dead. But each day, the snowman learns more, accumulating words and sentence structures and  _understanding_ like Pete's never seen before. In less than a week, he's talking nearly as well as Carrie.

They all work together to hide him over Christmas – Pete's mother would have a heart attack if she saw Patrick again, so they keep him in Josh's room, checking on him every so often and bringing him food. He seems quite happy, especially when they bring him some Lego. By the time Christmas evening comes, he and his bear have built a tower all the way to the ceiling.

On boxing day, when Pete's parents have left, the snowman is allowed downstairs again, and they all sit together watching Shrek the Halls, which he apparently finds hilarious. "The ears!" he says, putting two pointed fingers to his head, "they're so silly!"

Pete just can't resist sliding an arm around his waist as he laughs, letting the snowman rest his head on Pete's shoulder. If Pete imagines warm flesh underneath his hand, he can almost kid himself that it's Patrick, home at last.

The snow doesn't last forever, though, and soon, they're left with only a few patches here and there, slushy and greying. It diminishes the Christmas spirit a little, but the kids don't seem to mind too much; they love the mud as much as they love the snow, and Pete finds himself spending increasingly long periods of time scrubbing crusted dirt from trainers. Most of them belong to the snowman. He doesn't go outside too often, he gets freaked out by cars and dogs – most things, really – but he likes to help with grocery shopping, and Pete ends up with all manner of weird food in his cupboards.

The snowman likes to give Pete things, ranging from hugs to dead beetles, and once a live mouse which he now hopefully knows never to bring near Pete again. About once per day, the man will creep around the house until he finds Pete and presents him with some new Lego structure, or a mud pie, or, on the best days, a sandwich. Pete says no, at first, wanting the snowman to leave him the fuck alone for once, but then he just gets sad, and even Pete's apathy isn't enough to handle that.

It's the night before New Year's Eve when Pete gives in to temptation.

He'd noticed, a few days previously, that the snowman had been squinting rather too hard to be healthy, and that's when it hit him – he needs glasses. More specifically, he needs  _Patrick's_ glasses. This hadn't sat well with Pete at all.

The snowman can't wear Patrick's clothes. He can't sleep in Patrick's bed, he can't kiss Patrick's husband, because he's not good enough. Pete knows he won't ever be good enough to walk in Patrick's shoes, literally or figuratively, and to give him Patrick's only remaining pair of glasses – still in the bedside cabinet, like always – would be a step too far.

He makes it three days before he caves.

"Try these," Pete says flatly, holding them out to the snowman where he's nestled in the sofa. "They'll help."

The man takes them carefully, examining them as Pete sits down beside him, and of course getting fingerprints all over the lenses. Patrick used to  _hate_ that.

After a few seconds of watching the snowman struggle, Pete takes the glasses from him, wipes them on his shirt and slides them carefully on to the snowman's face. The man blinks rapidly, but smiles, pushing them up his nose and proclaiming, "I can see all the way over there!"

Pete laughs, then abruptly stops when he realises how handsome Patrick always looked in his glasses, the black frames sitting starkly against his white skin, his eyes sparkling behind the lenses. The snowman doesn't look nearly as good, Pete tells himself, finding imaginary differences in the curve of his cheeks and the swell of his bottom lip.

He ignores the snowman for the remainder of the evening, his eyes fixed upon the TV and away from the snowman's wide eyes and wandering hands. He just doesn't realise what he's doing to Pete when he curls his fingers into Pete's pyjamas and nudges his thigh against Pete's, nuzzling into Pete's shoulder. He's made a habit of falling asleep on Pete, often nodding off when Pete reads them all a bedtime story. Both the worst and the best moments are when the snowman is asleep; there's nothing keeping him from Patrick, no blank eyes or broken sentences, he looks just like he did when Pete would wake up next to him, perfect and peaceful. But then it'll all disappear when the snowman stirs and doesn't realise how in love with him Pete is.

When they finally call it a night, Pete can't resist any longer. He finds Patrick's hips in the shadows of the landing and pushes him towards the nearest wall, closing his eyes and leaning his face close to Patrick's. Kissing him feels like it did when they were kids who didn't know what to do with their mouths, clumsy and fumbled but so very right, Patrick's lips still soft to the touch and so full of give when Pete pushes towards them.

One of his hands finds Patrick's hair and the other stays firmly at his hip, his eyes clamped shut so as to keep the illusion undamaged. It starts to crack all by itself, though; Patrick's not kissing back, he's not  _responsive,_ he's not running his hands up Pete's chest and smiling into Pete's mouth like he used to. When Pete opens his eyes, Patrick's not there anymore.

The snowman's cheeks are red and his mouth hangs open stupidly. Pete looks away.

"I wish you were him," he whispers. In the morning, the snowman's gone.

-

It's a relief beyond Pete's imagination. The permanent lump in his throat that developed over the last few weeks has finally faded, and he can go back to knowing, unequivocally, that his husband is dead, and that's that. All that's left of the snowman is an ice-cold, soaking wet bed, and the devastated tears of the kids when they wake up to find that he's not there.

School and work serve as effective distractions, and the kids get over it quickly enough. Josh makes a point of telling his whole class about the snowman that came to visit, hence the strange looks Pete receives from some of the parents at pickup time. Carrie just cries a lot, forever asking Pete when it might snow again, watching the weather report religiously every evening. The snowman's bear sits forlornly on the mantelpiece – Pete is forbidden from touching it.

A month later, and the snowman is a distant memory. Pete can kid himself that it didn't really happen, that it was some strange dream he had or a weird story one of his students cooked up. Patrick stays in the past and out of Pete's head.

Until the next snowfall.

It's heavier this time, whirling about the sky in droves, crushing itself up against the house and worming its way into even the most sheltered crevices. The kids go nuts – they fight over who gets to go out in it first, who gets to throw the first snowball, who gets the first go on the sledge. And of course, they insist upon building another snowman.

Pete plays along, helping them balance chunks of snow on top of one another, providing them with stones and carrots. They insist upon the same scarf and the same hat, ignoring Pete's pursed lips and crossed arms. They tuck spare shoes and clothes under the porch before they retreat back to the warm – they're getting their hopes up, and he'll be the one that has to pick up the pieces. It won't happen again, lightning doesn't strike the same place twice.

But despite himself, he spends the night half-awake with excitement, imagining what it might be like to see Patrick's face again, to see him alive, if only in the form of winter magic.

-

At five thirty the next morning, there's a knock at the door.

Once Pete registers what's going on, he leaps out of bed and competes with his kids to win the unspoken who-can-get-to-the-front-door-first challenge. He whoops both their sorry asses, happily pushing past his three-year-old daughter in order to thunder down the hall and yank open the front door.

"Patrick," he says when he sees the bright smile and the sparkling eyes, throwing his arms around Patrick's – the snowman's – jacket-wrapped torso. Patrick's gloved hands hug back, squeezing Pete tight as the kids barrel into their legs and shuffle between them.

Pete feels a pang of jealousy when Patrick crouches to hug the kids properly, but it fades when Patrick looks up at him with his shining grin. He's just as beautiful as Pete remembers him.

He's slightly different, though. He's slightly... _more,_ more lively, more vibrant, less timid. He laughs harder and talks faster, telling Pete that he remembers nothing of the time between snowfalls, but everything of Pete and his family. Pete makes them all hot chocolate (cold chocolate for Patrick) as he listens to Patrick talk, staring at the way his mouth moves and his eyes light with the memories of Christmas.

His English has come on in leaps and bounds – he can't always find the words to express what he wants to, and he occasionally misses out key nouns that leave Pete baffled, but he hardly shuts up throughout their tragically early breakfast, and it makes Pete heart feel too big for his chest.

Magical snowman or not, they still have work and school to go to, and Pete's as reluctant to leave as either of his children. They all help Patrick get cuddled up on the couch with his bear and apparently every blanket Josh owns, and Pete has to promise that he'll let them all play with Josh's dolls house when they get home.

He's true to his word, and later on, he can hardly stop smiling as he sits grading papers, watching his kids laugh as the snowman makes the little plastic dog bound up to the little plastic human and knock him over.

Pete begins to empathise with the little plastic human as he watches Patrick's elegant fingers and the flex of muscle in his arms, his jumper rolled up to the elbows. He wants those arms wrapped around him, he wants to be held down, to be hauled up, to be hugged through the night, he wants, wants,  _wants._ But he can't have.

He reads them all the story of Sleeping Beauty before bedtime, the sight of Josh, Carrie and the snowman all crowded in Josh's bed rather amusing. They all laugh in the right places, and Carrie likes to snatch the book out of Pete's hand to look carefully at all the pictures, pointing out various things to a curious Patrick.

"Is that her?" Patrick asks, pointing at the drawing of the drowsy princess.

"Yes," Carrie nods, "and she wake up when she's kissed. 'Cause the prince loves her."

"How does he know he loves her?" Patrick asks, looking to Carrie with wide eyes as if she has all the answers.

Apparently, she does. "He feels all fuzzy inside when he sees her," Carrie says matter-of-factly, jabbing a finger at the picture of the prince.

What Pete does not expect is for Patrick to look him straight in the face as say, "I think I love you, then."

Pete nearly chokes on the air in his lungs. "What?!" he blurts, "don't be stupid."

"I'm not," Patrick presses, "that's what I feel. In here," he finishes, patting his own chest.

Heat rushes to Pete's cheeks, and he feels suddenly as if he's back in high school finding notes from his crush in his locker.

"Daddy loves you too," Carrie supplies as Pete's mouth flaps. "'Cause you're like papa."

"Papa?" Patrick says, "who's papa?"

" _You're_ papa, silly," Carrie tuts, turning the page and proceeding to show Patrick the next picture. He's not quite as engaged anymore.

"You love me?" Patrick asks, his eyes wider than the ever-growing hole in Pete's sanity.

"Uh...well, I dunno, I – "

"Is that why I'm in all the pictures?"

The kids go silent at that point, Pete can feel their eyes on him, waiting for whatever answer he'll manage to cook up. "I – loved someone who looked like you," Pete sighs.

"Is that why you kissed me?" Patrick asks, suddenly too close, too tempting for Pete to look him in the eye. When he nods, Patrick strikes.

Pete feels the lips before he sees their owner, touching his own a few times, gentle and cautious. In the seconds before Patrick pulls away, Pete cups his jaw and kisses back, steadying him and taking Patrick's bottom lip into his mouth. He's missed that lip so damn much.

"Ew," his children chorus, "that's disgusting!" When Pete feels Josh tugging at his sleeve, Pete pulls back, his heart leaping when he sees Patrick's eyes flutter open and his cheeks ball up in a smile. It's becoming harder and harder to distinguish what's real and what's not. Pete should care, but he doesn't.

When the rather disjointed story is finally finished, Pete stumbling over the words whenever he catches sight of Patrick's grin, they have to practically drag Carrie into her room, telling her that they, too, are going to bed, since it was such an early morning. Pete could definitely do with an early night.

He's never been good at taking his own advice.

Patrick kisses him again, on the landing, and it's supposed to be a  _good night,_ a farewell, but Pete can't hold himself back. He shoves them both into the guest room and pushes a confused snowman onto the bed, reattaching their lips as he climbs on top of him.

"What are you doing?" Patrick gasps, hesitant now like he wasn't before, but helping Pete unbutton his shirt all the same.

"Please," Pete whispers, dropping his face to Patrick's chest and wishing,  _wishing_ it was real. "Just let me, please."

He starts to cry when Patrick nods, bringing their mouths together and kissing hard and fast and with no idea what he's doing. It doesn't matter, though, what matters is that Pete has his husband back for as long as he can pretend.

Pete trails his mouth down Patrick's torso, hands feeling the soft line of his dick through his pyjamas. Patrick moans when he squeezes, in tune as always and Pete revels in illusion as he feels the memory of hands on him and hips bucking underneath him. Pete finds that if he blocks out the coldness under his fingers and the hesitation beneath his hands, he can imagine that this is the man he married, that this compulsive love is mutual. He works Patrick's pyjamas down to his knees and curls his hand around the cock he used to know so well, relishing the weight of it, wanting to taste it on his tongue.

All his wants are open to him now, though, so he laps at the head, feeling Patrick tense up underneath him, his gorgeous thighs falling open to let Pete in. Pete accepts the invitation, sinking his mouth down on Patrick's cock and groaning at the sound Patrick makes, just like he used to. He knows exactly what Patrick likes, he knows to cup Patrick's balls in his hand and squeeze gently in time with his mouth, he knows to change up the rhythm every so often if he wants to hear Patrick needy and begging, he knows Patrick likes it a touch on the rough side, with Pete's teeth nipping at the skin of his thighs and Pete's fingernails trailing red across his hips.

Pete comes harder than he has in years, barely touching himself until the last moment as he sucks Patrick's cock like there's no tomorrow. Reality hits only when both their climaxes are over and Pete looks up to see the snowman, looking blissed-out yet completely bewildered. He's not drawing Pete in for a kiss, he's not folding Pete up in his arms, he's just staring with those blank eyes. Pete feels fresh tears drip down his face.

"I'm sorry," he says, scrambling over the snowman's legs and off the bed. "I didn't – I'm so sorry."

The snowman sits up, reaches out, asks Pete to stay, but Pete's already left the room. He barely makes it to his pillow before he begins to hack out sobs for the whole house to hear.

 

If anyone does, they don't say anything.

The snowman is quiet at the breakfast table, slurping his Coco Pops with care and only occasionally engaging with Carrie's babble about it being Nature Day at her nursery. Pete can hardly get them off to school fast enough, needing to escape Patrick's gaze and get himself together.

He spends the next few days of work distracted in class and distressed at home time, never really wanting to go back to the world of illusion that his own home has become. He ducks and dives out of alone time with Patrick, letting Josh distract him with Lego and action figures and Carrie with her intermittent fits of screams. Pete feels like doing the same, sometimes.

The snowman starts to ask questions about the pictures on the wall. He wants to know about Patrick, who he was, but Pete won't tell him. Pete can't give him any more than he's already taken. Pete idea of  _Patrick_ has become so blurred and broken over the last couple of months that he's worried he'll forget the moments that were real, the happiness that wasn't warped into something twisted and unnatural.

But one morning, one strangely peaceful Saturday morning, the snowman says something that tips Pete's head upside down and shakes it vigorously.

"I like yoghurt," the snowman says absently, scraping his spoon around the pot to get every last bit, "I liked that time we went and got yoghurt together, that was fun."

Pete looks up, confused. "Uh, I don't think we've ever been to get yoghurt, dude," Pete laughs. With a foot of snow still lying around it's been difficult to get anywhere too far away.

"No, no, we did," the snowman insists, "and you got blackcurrant and you didn't like it. And you spilled it on your new shirt."

This time when Pete looks up, it's to stare. "Uh – that, that wasn't this year, that was – that was our first date. How do you know that? I didn't tell you that?"

"I know, I just remember it," the snowman says, shrugging like it's nothing. It's everything.

"You remember," Pete says, "you...you remember."

The snowman seems to morph into Patrick before Pete's eyes, and Pete stands up suddenly, marching around the table and leaning until Patrick looks at him.

"Patrick, what else do you remember?" Pete says urgently, because he  _needs_ this, so badly.

Patrick just shrugs. "I remember going grocery shopping and buying all the garlic?" he says, looking up at Pete expectantly.

"No, no, that was at Christmas, do you remember anything from before that?"

"Uh..."

"Think!" Pete almost shouts, and Patrick jumps, holding his hands out between himself and Pete.

"I don't know! I swear! It was just the yoghurt thing!" he cries, his eyes wide with alarm.

Pete breathes out slowly, taking Patrick's hands in his and squeezing them. "Okay. Okay, I'm sorry, I just – got excited. Please, tell me if you remember anything else."

Patrick nods, his face softening to a smile. "I'm sorry too. Maybe I just really like yoghurt."

Pete laughs, but keeps hold of the spark of hope in his chest. His Patrick is in there somewhere, he knows it, even if he's only allowed to find him piece by piece. When the snowman stands up and kisses him softly, it's empty and lifeless but it's  _something,_  it's more than just the kiss of a stranger. Pete kisses back until he hears Josh running into the kitchen.

It's a strange little dance they do over the next week, sometimes incompatible, sometimes inseparable, and Pete finds himself increasingly leaning towards the latter. Snowman or not, Patrick is as captivating as he ever was, and Pete is so inevitably drawn to him that in the end, he gives up. Illusion or not, Patrick must be made the most of.

But the most that can be made diminishes with every passing day. Pete is painfully aware of the snow, or rather, the lack of snow. They're down to no more than a centimetre in the places the sunlight doesn't reach, and the weather is only going to get warmer. The forecast promises it'll be the last snowfall of the season.

Anxiety manifests itself in stolen kisses out of the kids' sight, in fumbled orgasms on the couch and sad glances thrown from afar, and as they sit together one evening, hands laced under blankets, they know it'll all have melted by morning.

Pete can hardly bring himself to look at Patrick. The snowman's wide eyes say it all – he's fucking terrified. Last time, he says he fell asleep before it happened. This time, they both know that neither of them will be sleeping tonight. Patrick's so scared that it might hurt.

They keep it from the kids. Pete never likes to lie to them, apart from when he says he doesn't have money for ice cream, but he packs them off to bed as soon as possible, assuring them that tomorrow morning, snowman will still be here.

Patrick hasn't been quite so attached to the bear second time around, but tonight, he keeps it close to him, cradling it in one hand and clasping Pete's fingers with the other. They sit for far too long in agonising silence, each thinking about the same thing but neither voicing it.

They start to kiss around midnight, like some awful New Year's parody, clinging tight to each other and the one, precious memory of a life long gone. Pete gets Patrick to repeat it again and again, memorising the tone of his voice and the way his lips move, keeping them safe forever. Last time, he lost it all without warning. This time, he's salvaging as much as he can.

"You're wonderful," he tells Patrick, like he should have done so much more often than he did, "you – you're the most wonderful person I ever met and – and you made me so happy."

They both know, at this point, that all thought of snowmen has fled Pete's mind. It's his husband he's talking to now, the man who should have been here to raise their children, to love Pete forever like he promised, but instead is drifting in ashes across Lake Michigan.

Patrick smiles tearfully, bringing Pete's lips to his own and touching their tongues together, teeth clashing and saliva dripping like their first shy kisses over spilt yoghurt. They kiss until their mouths are wet and reddened, until their hands have traced every stretch of skin, until –

Until Patrick takes in a breath far too sharp.

Pete feels it first; the cold. He's got used to the chill in Patrick's skin now, the lack of blood pumping through his veins, but this is something else. It's freezing, it  _hurts,_ touching Patrick's skin feels like sticking your bare hand in snow and keeping it there until it stings. Patrick slumps forward, and Pete catches him.

He lowers Patrick onto the couch, tucking a pillow under his head, the tears beginning to fall and his chest beginning to split down the middle again like it did three years ago. Patrick's still here, his eyes following Pete and his mouth quivering with unspoken words.

Pete decides he doesn't care about the cold, and reaches out to clasp Patrick's hand, settling his own head on the pillow. He won't let Patrick do this alone, not like last time.

"I'm here, I've got you," he says into Patrick's frightened eyes, letting their noses touch briefly. "It's gonna be okay."

"You're so beautiful," Pete whispers, stroking a hand through Patrick's hair. "I – I never said that enough. And you're – you're a great father, what are the kids gonna do without their papa?" Pete smiles a little bit, and Patrick's mouth twitches up at the edges.

Patrick's hand suddenly goes rigid, and Pete looks down to see that it's frosted with glittering white. He's got moments at most.

"I'll miss you," Pete says quickly, his tattered voice breaking up as he sees the white peek out at Patrick's neck. "You were the best thing that ever happened to me, Patrick, you – you, you  _s – saved_ me, you d – don't even know."

Pete lets out a sob as the frost envelops Patrick's lips, turning them powder blue and freezing them shut forever. Patrick's eyes lock with Pete's one last time before they lose their light, the hint of gold fading to dull grey.

He presses one last, desperate kiss to Patrick's still mouth, then cries into Patrick's hair, repeatedly stroking his thumb against Patrick's frozen cheek as his already mangled heart rips itself into smaller and smaller pieces.

"I l – love you," Pete cries quietly, "I a – always have, I love y – you."

 

In the next few moments, it becomes clear that magic isn't quite finished with Pete yet.

"Whoa. What the fuck is going on?" Patrick's voice asks, and Pete's eyes snap open.

"Patrick?" he says, pushing himself up on one elbow and staring at Patrick's face. Patrick blinks, and the frost flakes off around his eyes. Pete brings a hand to Patrick's cheek and brushes his fingers across it, revealing pink skin under the white. He's  _alive._

Patrick touches his own finger to his face and examines the cold powder that comes off. "Uh – that's interesting," he says, his eyebrows pinching together.

Pete feels as if his heart is collapsing, exploding and putting itself back together all at the same time. He tries to think of the words to say as Patrick shifts himself upright, shaking the frost from his hair rubbing it from his eyes. He stops only when Pete grabs his hands and stares into his face.

"Patrick," Pete says again, wiping tears from his cheeks and throwing himself at the man in front of him, squeezing him as tight as his shaking hands will let him and breathing in his wonderfully familiar scent. It's only when he tucks his face into Patrick's neck that he realises something is different – Patrick's  _warm._

"Pete?" Patrick laughs breathily, placing his hands on Pete's hips and pushing him back slightly. "What's up?"

"Do you remember," Pete blurts, "do you remember me?"

Patrick's face fills with amused confusion, and he reaches to brush Pete's ruffled hair flat. "Of course I remember you, we're fucking married, you moron."

Pete's never been so glad to be called a moron in his life. His chest bursts with happiness, pressing itself to Patrick's as if to spread some of the absolute joy he's feeling, and he smiles harder than he has in far too long. "Do you remember the wedding?"

Patrick rolls his eyes. "Well, yeah, you stumbled over the damn  _I do_ s, my aunt got paralytic, the food was disgusting but the sex was brilliant," Patrick grins, and Pete apparently still has enough moisture in his body to start crying again, climbing fully into Patrick's lap and draping himself over his husband's body, his warm, vital,  _alive_ body.

"Love you," Pete sobs, now that Patrick can hear him for the first time in three years, "I love you."

Patrick just holds him for a few moments, stroking his hands through Pete's hair and shushing him softly.

"So...why am I covered in snow?" Patrick asks gently, once Pete's in a fitter state to do something other than sob.

"I don't know, you, like, died or something – wait, do you remember the crash?" Pete asks, not really sure what he'd like the answer to be.

"Um," Patrick ponders, "yeah, ish. I remember some headlights. When did that happen? Last night? How long was I out?"

Pete cups Patrick's face in his hands as he thinks of how to answer this. There seems no other way to say it than Pete's croaked, "Three years."

Patrick's eyes widen and his lips part, the laughter leaving his face and his body tensing. "What? I've – I've missed three years?"

Stroking a finger across Patrick's cheek, Pete nods slowly. "You – you died, Patrick. You left me."

"Whoa. Well, that would explain the drowsiness," Patrick smiles weakly, giving Pete's hips a gentle squeeze. "I'm so sorry."

Pete nearly laughs at how forgiven Patrick is, delirious just from looking at Patrick's full lips and warm eyes. "It's okay," Pete says, even though it probably isn't, "you're here now."

"So I came back from the dead?" Patrick considers, nodding a little. "Like Jesus."

With a bark of laughter, Pete cuddles into Patrick's soft chest, wrapping all his various limbs around him and clinging on for dear life. "I can't believe you came back to me."

A kiss is pressed to the top of Pete's head before Patrick replies, "I can't believe I've missed three years. What's been going on?"

"Uh, well," Pete gulps, "your brother got married, I got that college job and our president is a cheese puff."

"What?!" Patrick exclaims, laughing. He probably thinks that last one is a joke. "Wow. How the fuck are we gonna explain this to, like, other people?"

Pete shrugs. "Just tell them you were a CIA agent and you faked your death to avoid capture by the mafia."

Patrick grins and shifts slightly, taking a hand off Pete to reach under himself and pull out none other than the brown bear he'd been so attached to. "Why do I remember this?" he asks, fondling its ear between his fingers.

"Oh, uh –" Pete struggles to find the words to explain this particular set of events, "you – you were a snowman and you liked the bear."

"Okay, I'll be asking you more about that later," Patrick frowns, "But the kids! How are they? Where are they?"

Patrick scrambles to his feet when Pete points towards the ceiling, and they both stumble up to the kids' rooms, arms twined together and faces hovering close.

Watching Patrick's face light up at the sight of his kids is one of the happiest moments of Pete's life. He'd spent weeks imagining, if Patrick was here, if by some miracle, he came back to Pete, whether he'd approve of Pete's efforts as a parent. Patrick had always been the one who knew what to say and what not to say, who knew how not to shout, who could calm Carrie's screaming and do exactly the right character voices in Josh's pretend games. But Pete doesn't feel he did too badly when he sees the adoration in Patrick's eyes as he perches on the bed next to a sleeping Carrie, brushing a hand through her hair and humming to her softly when her eyes flutter open for a few seconds.

Patrick's smile broadens at the sight of a guitar in Josh's room, and his fingers trace the figures on Josh's Star Wars blanket with amused pride.

"You've done so well," Patrick tells Pete in the darkness of their bedroom, as Pete's hands struggle to keep themselves away from Patrick's warmth, his porcelain skin. "They're both perfect."

"You haven't seen them awake yet," Pete warns, ready to explain all his failings as a parent to Patrick, but then Patrick kisses him and Pete forgets where he is and what is his name is.

That night is filled with everything Pete's missed, everything he's craved whenever he's thrust his hand into his pants in the last three years. He wants Patrick in every possible way, he wants to own him and be owned by him, and they fuck like they haven't since their honeymoon. Pete begins to realise how much he's forgotten, the way Patrick would grind their hips together, the way he'd clench up around Pete, the way he'd pound Pete into the mattress until Pete screamed so loud they both stop dead to listen for the sound of kid's footsteps.

Pete feels in a way that he hasn't since he saw Patrick lying cold and scarred on the mortuary table and everything went numb. He feels in a way that makes him realise how colourless his life has been, how much light was missing from his existence. That night, Pete's world becomes full again, his heart becomes whole and his bed becomes warm with the body it's been missing for so long.

They end up tangled together, Patrick's arms secured tight around Pete's chest and his leg nudged between Pete's thighs. As they fall asleep, Pete watches the stars through the gap in the curtains, thanking them over and over for this miracle. He'll never dismiss magic again.

-

The next morning, Pete finds himself waking from an unusually long sleep. The clock says nine am, and he hasn't slept 'til nine since the nurse first placed Josh into his arms. He shifts over, resenting the lack of arms around him and ready to smother Patrick with hugs and kisses, when he sees that Patrick's not there.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he possibly have thought that this would last, that it was even real? How could he have expected to be granted happiness after so much –

Then Pete hears the sound of David Bowie drifting up from the kitchen.

The amount of times he's frantically scrambled out of bed in these past few months is reaching the point of abnormal, but he does it with no less vigour, tripping over his own feet in his haste to put some kind of clothes on and get out of the door.

He runs down the stairs like a child on Christmas morning, finding his present wrapped in pyjamas and a smile as he piles pancakes onto a plate and drizzles them in syrup. Pete's imagined this scenario so many times before, and now it's here, standing in front of him. Two small children reach for the plate as Patrick holds it high over their heads and places it down on the table with a proud flourish.

"Daddy!" Josh exclaims when he notices Pete, "Papa's home!"

"Pancake?" Patrick asks, gesturing to the chair Pete's hovering near.

"I – I thought you'd gone again," Pete stumbles, watching Patrick in awe as he rounds the table and takes the chair next to Pete's.

"Never," Patrick says in his best Michael-Caine-in-Christopher-Nolan's-Batman voice. He leans over and pecks Pete lightly on the lips, flashing his tantalising smile as he pulls away and leaving Pete dazed with dizzying adoration.

"They're in love," Josh whispers to Carrie as Patrick takes Pete's hand across the table.

"Ew," Carrie replies, proceeding to exemplify her disdain by attempting to shove a whole pancake in her mouth with her fingers.

Once they've established that she won't choke to death, Pete goes back to staring at Patrick. Patrick grins at him every so often, and Pete takes pride in the fact that by the time their plates are clean, his husband's nurturing a healthy dusting of pink across his cheeks. Pete cannot express in words how good it feels to have him home, finally.

 

"So," Patrick says curiously as Pete begins to attack the washing up, "what's all this about a snowman?" 


End file.
